Teacher Fired for Telling Students She’s Pro-Life on Abortion
International | Steven Ertelt | Oct 13, 2026 | 12:45PM | London, England
A longtime Christian teacher is challenging her dismissal at an employment tribunal after she was fired for honestly answering a student’s question about abortion with her pro-life convictions.
Anita Meston, 63, a French teacher and cover tutor with 28 years of classroom experience, had worked at Biddick Academy, a state school in Washington, Sunderland, northern England, since October 2024.
Her supply contract had recently been extended when the exchange occurred in March 2025 during a Year 8 history lesson for students aged 12-13.
A student asked whether she supported abortion. Meston explained that her Christian faith and personal knowledge of women who regretted abortions led her to a pro-life position. She then allowed another student to express a conflicting view.
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The next day the headteacher informed Meston of a student complaint and cited school rules prohibiting teachers from expressing personal views in the classroom, ending her employment. Students had also questioned her about public figures including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and U.S. President Donald Trump; she offered brief, neutral descriptions before returning to the lesson and confirmed she planned to attend a Reform UK event when asked.
“I am profoundly shocked by Biddick Academy’s decision to dismiss me for my faith-based, pro-life beliefs and other mainstream personal and political views,” Meston said. “I do not believe it is a teacher’s role to impose beliefs unrelated to the lesson in the classroom. I merely acknowledged my students’ questions and provided truthful answers before redirecting them back to the lesson at hand.”
She continued: “If the national education system continues to claim to foster inclusion and tolerance, this must include tolerance of perspectives with which others disagree. In a free and just society, teachers should not be fired for honestly expressing their deeply held beliefs in response to questions in the classroom. What happened to me is nothing short of censorship, and this precedent cannot be allowed to stand.”
Alliance Defending Freedom UK and ADF International are representing Meston as the tribunal opens Friday.
Jeremiah Igunnubole, legal counsel for ADF UK, said that if teachers lose their jobs solely for views students or staff disagree with, “the next generation will learn that it is acceptable to censor opinions they dislike.” He added that schools are places of learning where teachers should be able to accompany students grappling with moral and social issues by offering truthful answers to questions, and that “a teacher-student relationship that is characterized by fear and self-censorship is antithetical to learning.”
“Expressing pro-life and other views in response to a direct question should never result in termination,” Igunnubole said. “The law protects all employees from discriminatory treatment. We are supporting Anita to uphold her rights as a Christian in the workplace and to reaffirm that employers cannot fire staff merely because they disagree with their Christian beliefs.”
The case echoes other reported dismissals of teachers in the United Kingdom for stating opposition to abortion when asked by students.
American-born Catholic history teacher Sarah Morse, 66, was fired from Arbroath High School in Angus, Scotland, on Nov. 19, 2025, after responding during a lesson on the rise of Adolf Hitler that “I am a faithful Roman Catholic and I am against it.”
Morse, who described the experience as an absolute nightmare and a terrifying precedent for the profession, has pursued an employment tribunal claim against Angus Council with support from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children.
Biddick Academy has not issued a public statement on Meston’s dismissal in available reports. The tribunal will consider her claim that the school discriminated against her for expressing mainstream Christian pro-life beliefs in direct response to a student’s question rather than imposing them on the class.
